IT Security in Higher Education

The technology environment in higher education is complicated by many factors. First, there are often ambiguous campus perimeters. Many schools have a transient student population, and, even when this is not the case, computer equipment is often moved during the school year between campus and home. This situation is further complicated by the fact that a distributed computing environment is common at large schools, making it hard for a central IT group to keep track of what's out there. Furthermore, many schools offer distance learning options, meaning that some student computers may never actually be on campus. Second, there is a tremendous amount of sensitive electronic data on most campuses.